


No Pillow But Our Arms

by Antrodemus



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Genderswap, Genderswapped Tony, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 21:16:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12968577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antrodemus/pseuds/Antrodemus
Summary: "Do I have a new therapist?" babbled the dark-haired woman in his arms, "I've got to send a fruit basket. I love my subconscious, this is the best dream ever." She wriggled back up against Steve. "Mm. Yes. Please."But maybe Steve is the one having the best dream, one where a genderswapped Tony is naked in his arms. Or... maybe not.Warning: the characters in this piece do believe they are in a dream, and act in ways they would not necessarily act if they thought were in a higher-stakes environment. That's maybe a bit dub-con-ish, certainly false premises, and if that makes you anxious, you may want to skip this work. Also, although Tony is only very temporarily in a female body, and not even really in that body, I use feminine pronouns for his time in that body. I... I just think that Tony is a little more genderfluid than some, okay? Or that our avatar in dreams will express fragments of our personality that don't neatly fit in a box, sometimes.





	No Pillow But Our Arms

> Speak to no-one of this,  
>  Not even in dreams,  
>  And, in case the pillow should prove too wise,  
>  We'll have no pillow but our arms.  
>  \---Lady Ise, 10th century C.E.

Steve didn't know how he got here, and he didn't care. That should probably have rung alarm bells, given how his days usually went, but...he inhaled, nibbling the ear of the naked woman spooned up against him, kissing her neck. Her shampoo smelled green with notes of leather, and she used a moisturizer that subtly blended sandalwood and... oh, Christ, He didn't care. The stuff on top, the oak and peat and expensive-smelling citrus, was nothing to the overwhelming scent of sex and _rightness_. She moaned and arched against him. "Oh, God, this is the _best_ dream," she said, "Please let me never wake up." 

A dream. Of course. He was going to figure out what he ate before bed and eat nothing but that for the rest of his life. But for now... he moved his right hand to caress her breast. The nipple stiffened under his hand, and her breath caught as he circled it, teasing. "Well, as long as we're dreaming, miss, and as long as it's a good dream, I think I need to feel you come." 

"Do I have a new therapist?" babbled the dark-haired woman in his arms, "I've got to send a fruit basket. I love my subconscious, this is the best dream ever," she reiterated. She wriggled back up against Steve. "Mm. Yes. Please." 

He found her left hand with his right. He expected to feel a manicure after all that product--- where had he smelled that before?--- but her nails felt short, almost to the point of exposing the quick, and the skin was calloused and where he expected smoothness, interrupted with scarring. "Here's what we're going to do, miss. You're going to put your finger on the tip of your clitoris, right where it makes a seal to your fingertip, and you're not going to move your finger, except to vary the pressure. Have you got that, miss? You've maybe tried it yourself." She had a full bush, wiry but silky like the hair on her head, straighter than most women's body hair he'd touched. 

She chuckled. "I haven't really tried much of anything as--- oh, my God, I'm so _wet_.' Her hand slid under his, exploring her own folds. "Oh... wow... I... Jesus... wait, 'miss?'"

"No names, ma'am. Unless," he whispered conspiratorially, his breath coming back against his lips, "you prefer... bitch? Slut?" The shiver against him and the sudden increase in slickness made him pray that this was a recurring dream. He slid his left hand under her to play with her other breast.

"Let's just stick with the plan for now, sport," she gasped. "But 'ma'am' is a hard no, not even if you're a fireman. Call me 'ma'am' again and I will smack you..." 

He fought to keep his voice steady. "Promises, promises... miss." He bit her earlobe, sucked it gently, then positioned his hand with hers, rubbing the shaft of her clitoris rapidly but not too firmly... "Oh my GOD," she gasped, "fuck... please, please, yes," she chanted, spasming and pressing up to his hand. "Yeah?" he hissed, "you like that?" Her back writhed against his chest and her ass pressed against his cock as she babbled blasphemies and affirmations and begged him not to stop, then suddenly stilled, out of breath. "Sorry, I need a minute. That was... intense." She snuggled against him and they panted in unison. "Wait. I have an idea." She wriggled, and his cock was between her thighs, enveloped in wetness. She rubbed against him, getting herself off. 

"Oh... oh, God, please..." he gasped, grabbing at her hips, stilling her, "If you keep doing that, I'm not going to last, and I think I need to taste you..."

"Oh?" she purred, "like this? Go ahead." She brought her dripping finger to his lips, and he grabbed her hand, sucking and licking it clean. He shook his head. "Not what I meant."

She tensed. "You do have the best ideas... okay, let's see if you or my subconscious is going to fuck me now. Worth the risk. I'm turning around. Don't freak out. I've got this thing, it's kind of like a pacemaker and holy shit, Steve?"

She was... beautiful. Dark hair, that he knew already, but piercing, ice-blue eyes, dark with arousal, and a bone structure that would have made his artist's fingers twitch for charcoal even if they'd met in a café, fully clothed. The flush that had washed over her features drained, leaving her pale, except for her sensual mouth. Waist narrow for hip size, perfect teardrop ass, muscles that probably shouldn't have been surprising given the state of her hands. But that wasn't what made him freeze like a deer in headlights. Because between those perfect, dark-tipped breasts was a mass of scar tissue, striated with dark lines, and in the center of that... he'd only seen it a couple of times, but it was impossible to forget, etched in his memory. A port, a glow, metal. "...Tony?" He felt like he was tumbling through the air, like up was in a dozen places at once and nowhere. "Oh, my God, Tony, I'm so sorry, this---" he babbled. _This wasn't how it was meant to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen at all. This was going to---_ "Forgive me, please forgive me, I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

"Shut up, Winghead," she--- he?--- said, running her (fine, whatever, her, for now) fingers through her hair and gathering his hands in hers. "Look. This is a dream. This is the only way I can have you, God knows, because you're perfect and you never bend the teeniest bit and that means you're so straight you make lasers look wiggly but God help me, I'm going to take you any way I can get you, if it doesn't mean losing you, but you're my best friend and I love you and I can't coerce you even when there are zero consequences, so if I'm going to have to let that," and she looked down at the still-glistening erection that had, humiliatingly, not gone down a millimeter since she'd called him by his name, "go to waste, let me know now and go away so I can get myself off again before the real you wakes me up and tells me that the Inhumans have got themselves stuck in a bathtub again and this is somehow putting the universe in peril so only we can save it but if you're going to fuck me by God let's _do_ it." Her eyes were wide and pleading. She dropped his hands. "Sorry. You can stomp off in a huff or yell at me or hit me or whatever, now. I know you're too good for me. But you need to tell me. I need you to tell me."

Okay, fine. A dream. He could deal with this. This was a just a part of his mind, telling him that he needed to say what he would say if there were no consequences. "Shellhead." She turned her head away from him, bracing herself. He cupped he chin and turned her face, forcing eye contact. "Tony. I've loved you forever. I've loved you since the first time I saw you, when there was still ice on my clothes and you thought those people were worshiping me instead of treating me like a giant Ripley's waxwork in a roadside attraction. I loved you when I thought you might be a robot and I loved you when I thought you were two different people and I loved you when I thought I hated you. It's you, it's always been you, it's only you. I want you any way you'll have me and I don't care if you're a woman now, it's you and that's the only thing that's ever mattered." Only it wasn't Tony. It was a dream, but his eyes were filling up with tears and he's said it, and he can't ever unsay it to himself, not truthfully.

Fuck. And some part of him that was not an image of a gloriously naked-and-trembling-for-him Tony chided _language_ , but he just didn't care. If he is being honest, he's said this to himself a hundred times, a thousand times before, and he will fight it down again. And again. Dying and coming back to life is easier, even if he's had less practice at that.

Tony's lip was trembling. "Well, fuck," she said, "Steve. I love you and I knew I loved you since before I knew which end of the soldering iron not to put in my mouth---"

"So Tuesday?"

"Shut up, Winghead, that was once and it was years ago and I hadn't slept in six days. Since forever. Decades before I even met you, I loved you. And if I told you you how long I've waited to say it and why and how much, we won't have any time, because those Inhumans aren't going to unstick themselves and I'm sure the the hot water is almost gone and Uatu hates pruniness. So. I love you and I always will, the rest is just paperwork and after-action briefings." She huffed. "Shut up and kiss me, Rogers." 

And they did, and at first it was stiff, weird and awkward, the weight of too much history and hope between them, but all of a sudden the walls melted within them, and it became like fighting together, near-telepathic connection and adrenaline rush. She was fierce and aggressive with her tongue, sucking and biting his lips and he had never been so vocal during sex, groaning and gasping and crisping his fingers behind her back. They clung to each other like they they did when they flew together: like both their lives depended upon never losing their grip.

When she tried to bend to take him in her mouth, he shook his head and said, "Later." Then he gently spread his hand over her solar plexus to keep her lying down, kissing her belly down to the the damp, sable matting at her cunt, then taking a few long, slow tastes of her to gauge where she was best sensitive before sucking her clit into his mouth and flicking his tongue rapidly from side to side across it. She arched until she barely touched the floor, screaming and swearing and calling his name, fingers tangled in his hair, the taste and scent of her filling his senses and covering his face, until she pulled him up to lick her juices off his mouth. "God," she breathed, "that was incredible. Please, I want you to do that to me every day for the rest of my life. Are you good at that? Please say you're good at that. If you get any better, it would kill me."

"I can do it again," he said, "Right now, if you want." She shook her head, smiling a little, and rolled him onto his back, laying on top of him. "Not now, Steve. It's time."

"Time?" he shook his head a little to clear it. "Are you ready? Are you sure?" 

"I've never been more ready, and I've never been more sure and I'm fucking terrified but you're here with me and that's everything I've ever wanted." She inhaled. "Ready?"

"Yes, but... Tony, there's no going back after this. If we make love, you're _mine_. That's it. You're mine, and I'm yours, and that's it. No retreat, no surrender, no walking it back or putting anything but each other first. No sacrificing ourselves to save the planet, no fighting over registration acts or cabana boys..."

Tony's eyes grew thoughtful, weighing the times when their country, their universe, their world, and countless lives had hung in the balance of the choices they made. She bit her lip.

"Good," she said, and impaled herself upon him. She locked eyes with him, and he felt surrounded by velvet heat and filled with light and a hundred other clichés, penetrated by her gaze and feeling every wave of pleasure as his own, every spasm of her orgasm squeezing him tightly and drawing him deeper until his vision went white and he came almost roaring her name. She collapsed on top of him, laying her head upon his chest.

They lay in silence, breathing together. After a few minutes, Tony said, "That was... wow. I love you. Words broken. Are you?" 

Steve smiled drowsily, touching her lower lip with his finger. "Mine," he said.

She tapped his lip in return. "Mine. Yes, yours." She flowed up his torso, not quite disengaging, sucking at his clavicle as they twitched with aftershocks. "Hey, look at that, I've left a mark on Captain America."

Steve smiled harder. "Yeah, you have."

Tony laid her head back on his chest. "I don't ever want to wake up, Steve. Don't ever let me wake up. Let's just stay here forever."

And without warning, there was the visual equivalent of a whoosh, the world turning inside-out and going small, so small and dark, and they are seated around a dark, wooden table, listening to the click of a case closing and Stephen Strange saying, "So the Orb will tempt you with visions of what you think you want most in life, trying to trap you in a lotos-eaters' vision of reality. The key---"

Around the table, his teammates blink, dazed. Tony's pupils constrict like a flash has gone off. "All well and good, Mojo-Man, but I need to go to the little Avengers room like, right now," he snaps, "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, ladies... Barton." Natasha's gaze follows Stark's retreating back with actual alarm, then she glares at Steve and at the door again. He is almost tempted to feign confusion. 

How many times has Steve looked into the mouth of certain death and _leapt_ down its maw? How many times has he thrown himself into a wall of fire, the path of bullets, onto a grenade without blinking?

But this is different. 

This is a risk. 

Natasha is glaring again. 

All right. 

"Excuse me, please," he blurts, and follows Tony. Behind him, Strange continues on as if uninterrupted, "--to resisting is to realize that reality has the potential to be even grander than we, with our narrow minds and wills, ever thought to dream..."

Tony's calling for his ride, and for once in his life, Steve is glad for the parking problem in Greenwich Village and Strange's refusal to put a landing pad on the building. He has three minutes. Maybe. 

"Tony---"

"Hey, Cap, don't you have a briefing to finish up? You can fill me in later, I've got some important business to attend to elsewhere." Tony's smiling like a shark, dead-eyed, projecting "don't come any closer" at Steve like a searchlight. 

He has to try. This is a life he has to fight for. This is why he came back. "Tony. What did you see?"

"Me? I saw a pony. Had little wings and a tattoo on its ass of the Playboy bunny logo. Its name was ' Sparkle My Father's Approval,' and you need--- oh, here's my ride. Gotta go, man. Great catching up. Brief me." And, shit, the town car is heading this way and why is there never _time_? He has ten seconds, maybe, and it's now or another several decades of soap-opera pining because the timing is never, ever right.

"Tony." And he hopes to hell that sting that lingers on his collarbone is not just in his head, and that they had the same vision. Somehow. Tony turns to him like a man who turns to look at the flash of the bomb that's going to kill him, and he pulls down the collar of his uniform to expose the mark Tony left. 

"It's not there, asshole, it was just a dream and I could never leave a lasting mark on you, not with a hickey, you know that," and the bands that are constricting Steve's chest break open, and he lifts his eyebrows and smiles with relief and says, "And you know what I meant by that how?" 

And Tony's mouth drops open and for once, for one glorious moment, he is silent. "You gotta come back, Stark," Steve says, the Brooklyn leaking into his accent like it does in his quiet moments. "And then we gotta save the universe, because the universe ain't gonna save itself. But then we gotta come back and talk about the _important_ stuff."

"Rogers?"

Steve winces at the last name. He's fucked up, he's fucked up big time, and this is the blow they will never come back from, the final betrayal. Tony takes two steps into his personal space, holding his pointer finger stiff like he's going to knock Steve over with it. "Steve... shut up and kiss me."

"Nobody ever actually says that, Tony." But he does.

A few months later, Tony will pretend to hold out a lot of very silly songs for the first dance at the wedding: "Iron Man;" "The Star-Spangled Man With a Plan;" The National Emblem march (which Tony insists upon singing as "The monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole," because he was delighted to hear that those lyrics had been around when Steve was on the playground). But they both know the first song will be "Dream a Little Dream of Me."

**Author's Note:**

> Please be gentle in your critiques--- one may note that this is my first time posting actual smut. Remember that you were a shaking noob at one point, too. Also, I am unashamedly hungry for kudos or comments as well as constructive criticism. If people like this, I think I might write the non-MacGuffin-holodeck sequel, where they are both in their proper bodies. Or who knows, maybe I'll flip the genders.
> 
> Girl Tony takes her coloring and cheekbones from 616, but her dialogue is a little more RDJ-Tony than I like to think. Everything else is pretty much pure 616.
> 
> I looked up the lyrics to "The Monkey Wrapped Its Tail Around the Flagpole," for this piece, and, wisely, I think, decided not to discuss it further in this work. However, it's a useful snatch of music to whistle when you want to comment negatively upon what someone has said and can't SAY anything.
> 
> Tony's moisturizers, etc. are Lush, (mostly Dirty), with a hint of Hermes for Men, because that's what everyone wears in the dreamworld.


End file.
